Lakeside’S Title Underscores Reason Gnl Deserves More State Spots

Talk prior to Max Classic XI about the quality of Spokane-area wrestlers was not exaggerated.

With only 28 wrestlers, the Great Northern League had nine finalists and 20 placers as well as a runaway team championship by Lakeside.

And the league could have had even a bigger impact.

The GNL only got to send two wrestlers per weight class. Meanwhile, District 1 sent six. And, in a couple weight classes, wrestlers got here without winning a district or regional match because there were only six entries.

“It’s a dilemma,” Lakeside coach Scott Jones said. “It’s a hardship, not necessarily for my team this year, but for our sport, our area, it is. What the new classification and allocation process has done to the Great Northern League is taken us out of team contention.”

Obviously, Lakeside’s extraordinary postseason overcame the lack of depth.

Chewelah had four third-place wrestlers at the district tournament and Riverside three. Jones said they all could have scored here and propelled their teams to a top 10 finish.

“In fairness to other coaches, they see the inequity,” Jones said. “They’re willing now to (discuss it), to come up with an equitable solution to get the top 16 wrestlers to state.”

The key, he added was to look at the big picture.

“You fight for the sport. You need to get people to vote what’s best for wrestling and not what’s best for their team or their town,” Jones said. “It’s not easy to do. You have to have a pretty global perspective to vote for what’s best for the sport.

“You don’t know poverty unless you’ve experienced it.”

Vaulting to the title

Freshman Katie Dinsmore became Lakeside’s first gymnastics champion in only the second year of the school’s program.

She vaulted from fifth to first in the State 3A vault with a 9.55. She scored 8.975 on Friday. Dinsmore, who was seventh in the all-around on Friday, finished fifth on floor, ninth on beam and 10th on bars after Saturday’s individual competition finals.

Ferris senior Gail Larsen, who was second in the 4A all-around on Friday, didn’t have quite as good of day on Saturday.

She slipped from a tie for first to fourth on the bars and from second to third on the beam.